A LIVERPOOL charity has been told to stop wasting taxpayers' money by sending asylum seekers on expensive taxi rides to accommodation across the country.

A LIVERPOOL charity has been told to stop wasting taxpayers' money by sending asylum seekers on expensive taxi rides to accommodation across the country.

Refugee Action has spent thousands of pounds in the past six months on cab fares for asylum seekers, Home Office funding which comes directly from the pockets of taxpayers.

The charity started looking for an alternative six months ago and blames the delay on having to renegotiate the asylum seeker travel contract with the Home Office.

It admits that after talks with the Home Office it cannot continue to use taxis and is looking at buying a minibus.

The Toxteth-based charity sends asylum seekers to emergency accommodation across England when the 260 places in Merseyside are full.

Cab fares have included £400 trips to Dover and £220 journeys to Birmingham - with the charity saying taxis are the safest and quickest way of moving the asylum seekers.

The National Asylum Seeker Support Service hands out the Home Office cash to Refugee Action.

The Toxteth-based charity says the delay happened as six months ago they were re-negotiating the asylum seeker travel contract with the Home Office.

It has been renewed in the past few weeks and before that the charity says it would have been pointless to buy transport.

A spokesman for the charity said: "We realise the situation is not ideal and have been speaking to the Home Office.

"The charity is on the verge of buying a minibus to cut costs."

Refugee Action says public transport is often not the best option because they have to deal with large families, the trips are sometimes late at night and there is the added problem of language barriers.

But they admit that after talks with Home Office they cannot continue to use taxis and are looking at buying their own minibus.

A spokesman for the charity said: "Hopefully the new transport will cut the cost by 50%."

The Home Office spokesman said: "We do scrutinise how the funding is spent and it would obviously be cheaper of this charity had their own transport."